A Life Unexpected: Holly Nather Book One (Holly Nather Series) (23 page)

“I trained Prince Luke and a few of their staff.” His chest seems to puff out and the aura emanating from him seems to change as he speaks. Arlo is very proud, as he should be.

“So when do you girls want to get started?” Arlo asks as a bottle of water appears in his hands. All of a sudden I’m very jealous that I don’t have control over my magic. I’m thirsty. I would ask Arlo, but I don’t want him to know that I’m that helpless.

“Now, I guess.” I say and shrug my shoulders. I wonder if I’m able to make a bottle of water appear in my hands. I start to concentrate on a bottle of water appearing in my hand, but nothing happens. I guess Arlo and Mallory notice I am trying to do something, because they both look at me with the same puzzled expression. They must think I am crazy.

“What are you trying to do?” Arlo asks.

“Get a bottle of water.” I don’t know how to explain that I only found out about my magic yesterday when I got married and became Princess of Terre. Yeah, I will definitely leave the last part out for sure.

“You don’t know how to do that?” Arlo states the obvious.

“Obviously not…” I say while crossing my arms over my chest. I am finally almost dry from my swim earlier. The dampness of my clothes is annoying and making me cold, so I start to shiver.

Mallory shakes her head in disbelief. “But…..that is the basics…you should have been taught that when you were five!” The shock in her voice is apparent.

“Well I don’t…okay?” I am not ready to tell them anything right now, and since Mallory is her own personal lie detector, I can’t exactly fib my way out of this one.

Laughing a little, Mallory nods her head. “Arlo, maybe we should start out with the basics.” Looking at me she says, “Are you ever going to tell me your story?”

I totally ignore her question and look at Arlo, determined. “The first thing I want to learn is how to put up a protection-thingy around me.”

“You mean Protection Barrier?”
Yes, stupid
. Do we really have to be specific?

“Whatever it is called.” I know I’m being totally rude right now, but I don’t need them pointing out the fact that I am stupid when it comes to magic.

“Can you feel your magic?” Arlo asks me.

“I don‘t know. If feeling means that I am my own personal volcano then, yes.”

Smiling and laughing, Arlo says, “Mallory told me about your swim earlier, and, yes, that is how it feels. It will feel that way until you learn to control it. Now that you know what it feels like, you will be able to control the intensity of your magic. Don’t get frustrated if there are things you can’t do, because not all of us can do the same things. You may not be able to create basic necessities like food and… bottled water. The protection barrier is easy,
if
you can do it.” I just realized that Arlo is bare-footed. Either he is too broke to buy shoes, because the Denton’s drained him of his earnings, or he just likes to go shoeless.

Realizing I‘m staring at his feet, he says, “Chloe, you need to concentrate. I can sense that you have a lot of inner thoughts that you don’t have control over.” Oh great. Now Arlo can sense when I’m thinking about something. Is there any privacy in Terre?

“Okay, and is that a problem?” I ask.

“Yes, especially when trying to keep a protection barrier in place. You have to learn to concentrate on something while keeping your inner thoughts to a minimum, so that you can focus all of your energy on the magic you are performing.” That makes sense, I guess. It sure would have been good to know before my breakfast became one with the queen’s face. The important question now is how do I make my inner self shut up? This will be the most difficult thing to accomplish…

“Where does magic come from anyway?” I ask. They better not make fun of me for this question.

“From inside of you.” Mallory says. She didn’t make me feel dumb so that’s good, but she keeps looking at me like she is trying to figure out why I am so naïve to magic. She won’t be finding that out anytime soon,
if
I can help it.

“Your magic is a part of you. This is going to sound crazy, but it’s like when you have to pee but there isn’t a bathroom around so you hold it. Then when you get to a bathroom, you release it.
You
are in control. You have to always remember that.” Mallory says then waits expectantly as if Arlo or I am going to say something or laugh at her analogy. Arlo didn’t laugh. He just mumbled
ewww
under his breath and nodded in agreement with her.

“Okay, so it’s always there just waiting to be used?” I ask and they both nod their heads. Huh… That’s cool. “So, any tips on how to control my inner thoughts?”

Arlo takes a drink of water. “Just try to push any other thoughts aside. Here, let’s practice. Try to do something with magic, something simple. I’m going to talk to you and try to have a conversation with you. Try to ignore me and concentrate on what you are doing. But always be sure to watch what is going on around you. If you ever get in a fight with magic, you have to be aware of other things going on while fighting.”

Arlo starts talking to me about the weather and other random things. At first I’m listening to him but he points to his head reminding me to concentrate. I’m not sure where to start or what to do. I am looking around and look down at the ground in front of me. A flower is the first thing that comes to my mind. A white daisy to be exact.

He keeps talking, and I do my best to hold my concentration on sprouting a daisy from the ground. I keep fighting the urge to listen to him and realize this isn’t going to be easy. Making Arlo shut up is all I can focus on.
Ok Holly, concentrate.
I have no clue how I’ve done it, but I finally gain control and tune him out. I see his lips moving but I don’t hear a thing. I look down at the ground in front of me. Just simply thinking of a flower does nothing. Not even a blade of grass moves. I dig deep into my mind and think of biology class in high school when we did an experiment on the growth of a plant.
I hope this works...
I picture the soil being fertilized with the vitamins and minerals needed to help it grow.

With my mind I focus my magic on a seed burrowing in the soil. Next I focus on water and sunshine. I imagine the seed gathering energy from the sunlight. I notice the ground vibrate; when it does my heart skips a beat with excitement.
I’m actually doing something!
I then see the leaves emerge from the ground. I imagine the tiny-hair like roots beginning to grow, and hope they are obeying my command. Normally this would take several days, but I use my magic to speed up the process. I begin to concentrate on the next set of leaves forming and the stem of the plant growing tall and strong. Lastly, I focus my attention on the daisy blooming. Suddenly, where there was once just grass, is a perfect daisy. For a brief moment, I sit in complete awe. I smile inwardly at my accomplishment, pick the daisy, and place it in my hair.
I did it. I seriously did it!

“Oh my gosh. Did you see that!?” I yell while pointing excitedly at the evidence of my success that now resides just above my left ear in my hair. There is so much meaning in this moment. I was actually able to control my magic and create a daisy.
Wow
. I feel like I’m two and just peed in the toilet for the first time. The feeling of accomplishment rocks!

“Yes, and you did great. Although, what you just did is great, you must learn to do it faster. You were battling inner thoughts and you doubted yourself for a moment. You can’t do that when you need your magic to cooperate in a split second. Drown out your thoughts like you drowned out me.” Arlo just burst my happy bubble. I still have to learn to drown out
my
thoughts and think faster. We all know my thoughts don’t shut up and faster…yea that is not going to happen anytime soon.

“Okay, I‘m going to try a bottle of water now.” I start to imagine a bottle of water in my hand. Thoughts about everything start trying to come up, but I keep pushing and shoving them from my mind and concentrating on some cold water in my hand.
This is NOT easy…
All of a sudden, I feel cold dampness in my hand but it feels weird. I look down at my hand, what is happening?? Water is literally pouring from my hand. I turn my hand, palm facing the ground, and it is like my hand is the cloud with rain pouring from it. I look to Arlo who is laughing hysterically. I then turn to Mallory but realize she is of no help, she is laughing also.

“Soooo… is someone going to help me or should I go water something?” I am about to panic because I don’t want to be my own personal watering can.

Catching his breath from all the laughter, Arlo says, “You really know nothing do you?” I give him the evil eye and hold up my hand that is raining.
Obviously not stupid!

“Arlo, jus-t fi-x it pl-ea-se!” Mallory is stuttering because she can’t stop laughing. I thought I was going to like her. It’s likely I’ll be changing my mind.

Laughing, Arlo says, “Sorry, I will fix it.” Arlo stares down at my hand and then waves both hands over it. I feel my hand warm up gradually and then the raining stops.
Thank God.

Arlo looks at me. “You have to be specific with your magic. Like when you created the daisy.” He is right. I was thinking about water in my hand. I start concentrating on a bottle of water. I envision how I created the flower from nothing and concentrate on all of the components I need to create a bottle of water. It takes a moment of ridding my brain of random thoughts and really,
really
concentrating, but I now proudly hold my own bottle of water. I open it, take a drink and grin from ear to ear.

“Much better.” Arlo says sounding proud. “Now, let’s try something harder. I am going to use magic against you, and you need to come back at me with magic. This will all become easy once you master it. Though it will take time to master. Try not to get frustrated. That will cause your magic to go out of control. You have to remain calm even though you are not going to like what I’m going to do.” Oh crap. The only time I used my magic on someone was when I bound Lana and her parents in chains, and I didn’t even know I was doing it!

“Ummmm… Are you sure we should do that already?” I ask feeling nervous. This can’t be a good idea.

“Yes. Mallory, be ready if her magic goes out of control.”

“Okay, I’m ready.” Mallory rolls her sleeves up and gets in a position that denotes she is ready to intervene if needed.
Well that doesn’t make me nervous at all…

I don’t even have a chance to breathe, when out of nowhere I am pushed by a force that I can’t see. It doesn’t hurt, but it is uncomfortable. My mortal instincts kick in, and I try using my body to push against it. But mortal instincts are completely useless in this case. I begin to feel the lava boiling again, and I know I’m pulling magic from inside me. I just don’t know what to do with it. While trying not to get consumed by the heat, I concentrate on pushing it at Arlo, along with the magic he is forcing on me. Right now, Arlo and I are literally playing tug of war with our magic. He pushes harder which causes me to push harder. I don’t even have a clue if I’m doing this right, and then my mind shifts from concentrating on kicking Arlo’s butt to Luke.
He
should be training me! Why didn’t he offer? Maybe he was going to… who knows. I feel the magic getting hotter and hotter. I try to stop it, but it won’t go away.

“CHLOE, STOP!” I hear Mallory when she yells this, but it doesn’t help. It only makes me nervous and scared, because I know I’m doing something terribly wrong. My vision is getting blurry, and I can’t see anything around me.

“MALLORY, DO SOMETHING!” I hear Arlo yell and can tell he is in pain. I try to look at him, to see what his happening, but I see about 10 of him. 10 of him rolling around on the ground in pain…

“I’LL HURT HER!” Mallory yells.

My words are slurred when I say, “Mall-oryyy, jussssst dooo iiit” I am having another hot flash from hell; I can’t see, and I’m hurting someone unintentionally. I knew this wasn’t a good idea.

Mallory yells, “SORRY!” Then everything goes black.

“CHLOE, WAKE UP.”
I open my eyes to see a concerned-looking Mallory hovering over me. I put my hand on my head, trying to relieve the throbbing pain.